A/N: This is the last chapter of my story. Once again, I'd like to thank the readers who left reviews, favorites, and follows. I appreciate the support, and hope to see you again in future fics.

Chapter 8: Conclusion and Epilogue

"I must say, rocky road ice cream is perhaps the best invention in modern times," said Crane, licking the cold chocolate from his spoon. They sat in her bed, a carton of ice cream between them, the digital clock showing just after three a.m. Abbie watched him devour his bite with as much ecstasy as he had devoured, well…the thought had her leaning forward and kissing his mouth mid-bite, their lips cold at first, but quickly warming.

"Hmm," he hummed in male satisfaction when she sat back against the headboard. "Delicious."

She grinned and dipped her own spoon in the carton. Making love half the night was a hungry business.

"So, better than cars or airplanes or computers?" she asked, picking up on his pronouncement.

"Perhaps I exaggerate," he conceded. "But right now, all I require in this world is this bed, this ice cream, and thou."

She rolled her eyes. "You are so poetic."

"I admit your charms have made me so.

'An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest…'"*

Crane recited these passionate lines in his best professor's voice, his eyes focusing on each part of her body the poem mentioned, warming her from within. Then he took another spoon of rocky road.

"I know that one," she said, pretending to be unmoved. She pointed her own filled spoon at him accusingly. "That poem is about a guy trying to get into a girl's drawers, if I remember correctly."

"Enticing her to make much of the limited time we have on this earth," Crane defended haughtily, then stole her ice cream right off her spoon.

"Hey!" she protested.

His expression was positively wicked.

"Just like a man, to lead her on with a line and ice cream promises, then take it all back once he got what he wanted," she grumbled, dipping her spoon in again. "The more things change, Crane…"

He took the nearly empty carton, then both their spoons, and placed all on the nightstand. He turned back to pull her beneath him, their bodies still naked and warm from much loving.

"I'm taking nothing back, Lieutenant," he said gravely. "But Mr. Marvell had the right of it, wanting to seize the day." He kissed her and enjoyed the chocolate that lingered on her lips.

"'But at my back I always hear

Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near;

And yonder all before us lie

Deserts of vast eternity…'"*

He grew more impassioned with each whispered word of the poem, his hands gently framing her beloved face, raining kisses on her lips, her cheeks, her nose, for emphasis.

"We both well know the importance of time," he said. "I'm trying not to think of it, but as we near April eighth, I do feel as if Time is at our backs, and we should make the most of whatever days we have."

"That's why I'm here with you now," she told him.

"Allowing me to transgress your drawers," he added with a smile.

She lifted her hips enticingly against his. "And then some," she added. He closed his eyes at the renewal of his desire.

"Then by all means, I must gather ye rosebuds,**" he mused, his mouth lowering to one dark, rose-hued areole.

"Aww," she said on a grateful sigh, "ye certainly may…"

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

They lived in their passionate bubble for as long as they could, but their weekend came to an end, and Abbie had to return to work.

"I was thinking that perhaps I might procure a teaching position at the local higher education establishment," said Crane over their Monday morning omelets. "I do now have false documents from Oxford, though in truth I was a graduate as well as a professor there in my former life."

She sipped her coffee, her brows furrowing. "What'll you do when they call to verify that?"

"My recent sojourn back to England brought me in contact with a professor of History there, who now, as it turns out, owes me a favor."

"Oh? How did you manage that?"

He smiled mischievously. "That, my dear, is a story for another day. Suffice it to say, I have no doubt his recommendation shall pave the way for my employ at Sleepy Hollow Community College."

She smirked. "You're overqualified, you know."

"Perhaps, but I am unwilling to relocate just now, as something much more pressing than occupational prestige stays me here."

They shared an amorous look, and he reached for her hand across the table.

"You mean the fact that we live on what amounts to a Hell hole?" she teased sweetly.

"Indeed, my love. Be it ever so humble."

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Two weeks had passed—two of the best out of Crane's multiple lives—and the day of reckoning finally arrived. His deal with the Horseman must be kept, and he would meet his old friend once more. This time, however, he'd wisely told Abbie of his plans. They were lying in bed on the day of the meeting, and Abbie had begun to have doubts about what Crane was about to do.

"What if this is a trap?" she asked. "What if this rite takes your soul away? Who knows—maybe the Horseman also made a deal with Katrina in Purgatory."

"I've thought of this," he said gravely. "But being free of her—completely free—is worth the risk. Besides, I know Abraham loves her, perhaps more than I ever really did, given his capacity for forgiveness."

"But—"

"Hush," he said, placing a long finger upon her full lips before replacing it with his mouth. "We are not living in fear, remember? And if I renege on our agreement, he will make it his mission in life to kill you. Your life is one thing I will not sacrifice."

She knew she could not fight his stubbornness. So, if she could not beat him…

"I'm going with you tonight," she proclaimed.

He recognized her equal determination, and smiled, shaking his head in wonder.

"I won't even attempt to dissuade you."

"Smart man," she said, relaxing beneath the covers against him.

"Might I get that in writing?"

Her hand began to wander to his groin, and he inhaled, nostrils flaring as she ignited his passion once more.

"I'm more of a woman of action," she said slyly, sneaking a glance at his handsome face, contorted now in sensual appreciation.

"I have heard that—that…oh, my…actions speak…ahhh…louder than words. By all means, Lieutenant, please proceed…"

Later that night, they walked through the woods together, each holding flashlights, the moonless night so dark that all the stars in the sky glistened brightly above the trees. Katrina's amulet hung heavily about Crane's neck.

"This would be seriously romantic," said Abbie wryly, "if we weren't going to meet your dead wife and a headless demon of the Apocalypse."

Crane sighed. "It is a meeting I have both dreaded and anticipated. But it will be the end of that chapter of my life for good, and perhaps Katrina might finally rest in peace."

"I hope so," she said, and found his hand in the darkness. He squeezed it and both of them felt immediately more connected. Despite his earlier reassurances, she still couldn't help but feel anxious about the outcome. Losing him was not an option for her, and the moment she believed something might go wrong, she would do what she could to stop the ritual. She felt the heft of her holstered gun beneath her jacket, loaded with some of their special demon fighting bullets.

The Horseman was waiting in the clearing before the ruins of what had been Pandora's lair, carrying a lantern, his ghoulish head now planted firmly within his high redcoat collar. He still could not speak as a living human being, and Crane pressed against the green stone at his throat.

"Ichabod. So you have come. And brought your little strumpet, I see." He nodded his skull toward Abbie, the gruesome smile never changing, at least to Abbie's eyes. With the aid of the amulet, Crane could still see his old friend's former face.

"Watch yourself, Abraham," said Crain, his voice dangerously cold.

"What did he say?" asked Abbie, but Crane shook his head slightly.

"Not worth repeating."

Abraham laughed without humor. "It's quite touching, really, how protective you are of her. A pity you couldn't find feeling enough to save your own wife."

"Let's dispense with the pleasantries, shall we? Tell me about the ritual."

"In such a hurry to be free of Katrina?"

"Yes, in as much of a hurry as you are to be with her."

"Aw, well, then. Let's get on with it. We will need your blood," the Horseman announced, as if asking for a lump of sugar.

Crane withdrew a knife from a scabbard at his hip. "I assumed you would," he said.

The Horseman directed his light toward an eight-foot circle on the ground nearby, drawn in kerosene. "Stand in there. I will set the circle afire, then you will place exactly four drops of your blood, one at each compass point. I will call out the incantation, which you must repeat exactly as you do this. A portal should open, and we will see Katrina waiting at the mouth of Purgatory. Do you understand?"

"Yes," Crane replied. He turned to Abbie, who was trying not to fidget nervously, an expression of deep concern on her pretty face. "It will be all right," he said. "No matter what happens, you mustn't interfere."

She didn't much like that directive, but she nodded dutifully. "Okay. Be careful," she said, looking warily past him at the Horseman. Crane brought her hand to his lips.

"Of course. I've much to be careful for."

He didn't need to hear the words that were clearly emanating from her eyes; he hoped she could see them reflecting back in his.

Crane took his place in the circle, and the Horseman lit and tossed a match, catching the circle on fire. His mouth set in a bracing line, Crane drew the knife across his palm, deep enough that blood began welling at once.

The Horseman began reciting the incantation in Latin, while Crane put his first four drops at the north end of the circle. From Abbie's Latin classes in college, and her recent experiences with spells and incantationas, she could tell most of the words. Something about opening the door to the beyond and releasing the soul of Ichabod Crane from that of Katrina's. As predicted, the air a few feet from Crane began to shimmer like a desert mirage, until suddenly things became clear, and it was as if a door to another world was opened to them.

On the other side of that door, stood Katrina, a baby-sized bundle in her arms. She was as beautiful as ever, her vivid hair flowing around her dark, intricately stitched gown. Abbie couldn't see for certain, but something about the bundle didn't seem right; it was unnaturally still, and she might have sworn there was no baby swaddled in his mother's arms.

"Ichabod?" Katrina called, squinting into the darkness. "How can you be here? This isn't your time…"

Then her eyes widened in horror as she saw her husband, standing amidst fire, blood dripping from his hands. She focused on Abraham next. Apparently she could understand him without her amulet in Purgatory, and when she heard the words both he and Crane were repeating, her eyes blazed with fury.

"Cease this at once!" cried the witch. "I'll not let you go, Ichabod! I forgive you for taking my life, but we are bound together for eternity, you, our son, and I!"

But Crane ignored her, focusing on what he must speak, on counting the ruddy drops he must expel. Katrina began a counter spell of her own, and it became a race against time—of whom would finish their incantation first.

Abbie stood by helplessly, watching the man she loved repeat the complicated words while pressing his palm painfully to get more blood flowing, where it fell like red raindrops to the forest floor.

As Crane repeated the last words of the Horseman's incantation, Katrina's own spell ended, and there was a bright flash of light. Crane dropped suddenly to his knees, before collapsing to the ground, face first, barely missing the fiery sphere surrounding him.

"Crane!" cried Abbie, rushing toward him.

The Horseman looked in shock at Crane on the ground, uncertain whether the final words had actually escaped the man's lips before Katrina's spell had overtaken him.

"Abraham," screamed Katrina. "What have you done?"

A moment later, the portal closed, the sounds of Katrina's angry cries fading with it. The forest was suddenly quiet once more, the only sounds the crackling fire and the impatient knicker of the Horseman's horse.

Abbie was kicking dirt onto part of the fire so that she might safely cross to get to Crane, who still lay terrifyingly immobile.

"It is done," said the Horseman, though Abbie could not hear him, and he and his demon horse galloped back into the night.

Abbie dropped down beside Crane and rolled him to his back, mindful of the fire that still burned around them. His eyes were closed, his body still as death.

"Don't do this to me, Crane," she said, frantically feeling for his pulse. It beat strong and steady, his breathing satisfyingly regular, but she couldn't revive him, despite shaking and even slapping him lightly on his bearded cheeks.

Despite her strength, she knew she couldn't drag his tall, lanky form from the woods, not that far. She retrieved her cell phone and called for Jenny and Joe.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Crane awoke to find himself back at Abbie's house, surprisingly in Abbie's bed. It was still dark beyond the window blinds, and he wondered how long he'd been out. The last thing he remembered was finishing the Horseman's spell, then glancing toward the portal to Purgatory in time to see Katrina raising her hand toward him, her last words something about sending him back to where he belonged. For a split second, everything had turned bright as day, and then, ominously, dark as pitch. He recalled nothing more. He was in the process of deciphering how Abbie had managed to get him back home, when the sound of a baby's angry wail filled the house.

He bolted from the bed, his immediate thought his last vision of Katrina, holding what had seemed to be his son in her arms. Was Jeremy here now, a babe he had never gotten to hold?

He followed the crying to his bedroom, which he saw immediately was furnished now as a child's nursery. A very large cradle was pushed against one wall, the bedding of which was white and pink gingham. Across the room he saw the source of the noise: Abbie was bending over a padded table, a newborn baby's arms and legs kicking out in anger as Abbie was in the process of changing a soiled nappy. This close, he could now hear her murmuring softly to the child as she worked.

"What's up with you, baby girl? Where's all this temper coming from? Mommy's moving fast as she can. Hush, now, Lori Beth; it's my turn to get up with you, and your Daddy will kill me if he has to end up rocking you again at three in the morning…"

Mommy?

Crane felt the earth begin to spin fast beneath his feet, felt his head trying in vain to keep up. He fell dizzily against the door frame, and Abbie turned toward the thumping sound. When she saw him, she gave a sheepish grin.

"Sorry. She can't decide whether she's madder at her wet diaper or the fact that I didn't feed her first thing." She taped up the other side of the infant's diaper and picked her up, holding the tiny girl against breasts much fuller than Crane remembered. The glint of a wedding band caught the light, and Crane suddenly felt the weight of a similar ring on his own finger. He looked down at it in confusion.

At his dazed expression, Abbie's brows knit in concern.

"You okay, Crane?"

Looking up, he shook his head to try and clear it. "What—what is this? Who is this infant?"

She frowned. "I can understand not wanting to claim her at three in the morning, but there's no doubt that temper tantrum was all from your side of the family."

"My…side…?"

He knew he must have sounded like a simpleton, but he couldn't come to grips with what he was seeing, especially when she walked over to him and thrust the child into his arms.

"Here, take her a minute before I nurse her. I'm about to pee my own damn pants."

"But—" he protested, watching helplessly as she strode out of the room. He looked down at the small, wriggling creature in his arms, and his eyes widened. The little girl's skin was the color of Abbie's favorite cappuccino, her small head covered in a riot of dark curls. She quieted immediately and looked solemnly up at him with pale blue eyes, familiar full lips pursing at him expectantly. One little hand reached jerkily up toward his face.

As another wave of vertigo assailed him, he had to sit down, and the only place in the room was a rocking chair in the corner.

Dear God, he thought, beginning to rock mindlessly as the baby began to cry again. Where the hell am I? When the hell am I?

He heard the distant sound of the toilet flushing, and then Abbie appeared again in the doorway, moving to stand before him.

"All right, all right. Keep your britches on," she said to the baby. "Supper's coming."

She reached for the baby. "You wanna change places?" she asked. "Unfortunately, you're lacking the equipment to do this particular job for me."

He looked momentarily confused by the question, but then he rose to let her sit in the rocking chair with the baby. Before his awestruck gaze she raised her t-shirt and put the infant to her breast.

Crane's vision began to blur again, darkness closing around his periphery.

"Crane?" Abbie said in concern. "Crane!"

He jerked awake to find that he was in the backseat of a moving vehicle, his head in Abbie's lap.

"Oh, thank God!" she exclaimed, bending to kiss his forehead. "He's awake," she announced to the passengers in front. Crane heard the voices of Jenny and Master Joe echoing her gratitude. He moved to sit up, but she stayed him on her lap.

"Easy," she said. "You had a pretty hard faceplant back there in the woods."

That explained why his nose and forehead ached. It didn't, however, explain why he was suddenly in Abbie's SUV.

"Where's the baby?" he asked.

"Baby?" asked Jenny from the front seat.

"I don't think that was really a baby," said Abbie. "Katrina must have deluded herself that she was holding Jeremy."

"No," said Crane. "Your baby."

She shook her head in concern. "My baby? You must have hit your head harder than I thought. Stay put till we have a doctor check you out."

At Crane's continued look of disorientation, Abbie attempted to soothe him by brushing his slightly singed hair back from his forehead.

"Shh…try to rest. We're almost there."

"It was so real," he murmured. Then, he smiled dreamily. "Her name was Lori."

Abbie's hand stilled. "My mother? Did you see my mother with Katrina? Is she in Purgatory?"

Crane shook his head. "No, not your mother. I—I think I was dreaming, but perhaps…"

His voice trailed off as he remembered Katrina's last words before his mind had gone dark. In an attempt to stop him, she had likely attempted to send him forward in time where he actually belonged, but she must have sent him a little too far into the future. If that were so, he wondered how he had resisted her, why he wasn't still there with Abbie and their baby. Perhaps his will was stronger than either of them had suspected.

"Crane?" said Abbie impatiently, when he didn't snap out of his daze. "Are you delirious? You're scaring me."

He blinked, then focused on her in the dimness of the car. Gingerly, he sat up, despite her sounds of concerned protest.

"I'm quite all right, though a little disoriented. But since Abraham left us both alive, I am assuming the spell worked." He took her hand. "I am free, now, heart and soul."

"Yes," she whispered gratefully, squeezing his warm fingers. "Maybe now we can get on with our lives, with nothing coming between us ever again."

"That has been my fondest wish."

He didn't tell her that he thought he had travelled through time again, in case his glimpse of the future had just been a very vivid dream. The idea of having a child together, however, made his heart flutter, planted the seed of hope for their future. Despite their audience in the front, Crane enveloped Abbie in his arms, kissing her sweet mouth like there really was no tomorrow.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Epilogue

April 8, 2016

11:30 p.m.

It had been a long, nerve-wracking two days. Crane had insisted Jenny and Joe come over, that they all would stay at Abbie's house and pass the time indoors, doing safe things like watching movies and eating junk food. Jenny and Joe would be there for moral support, though Abbie was suspicious of that lame excuse. She knew in her heart that this day had wrought her death in Crane's old timeline, and yesterday had been the day that someone else had died. He had already told Abbie it wasn't Jenny, so Abbie had avoided casting fearful looks Joe's way. Of course, Jenny and Joe weren't stupid, and though they had tried to make light of Crane's neurotic behavior, everyone had been on edge, waiting for whatever it was that would take their lives.

When April 7th passed, and Joe still lived, they had all sighed with relief. But then it was the 8th, and the tension mounted once more. Crane refused to allow Abbie out of his sight. It would be annoying, thought Abbie, when he followed her to the bathroom and waited just outside, if she weren't so damned afraid, herself.

"You're not going to survive the heart attack you get from all that fat," teased Abbie, watching him down a fourth slice of deep dish pizza.

"Better me than you," he said seriously.

When Crane was nervous, she had noticed in their time living together, he ate. Carbs were his preferred comfort food of choice.

"This is all been pretty creepy," said Joe, from his place at the table. He had his own slice on his plate, barely touched, and the four of them were involved in a half-hearted game of poker. No one was really paying attention to their cards, and the ticking of the clock on the mantle seemed to grow louder with each passing moment. "It's like a death watch of some kind. You know, when all the relatives used to gather around a dying guy and count his breaths." He shivered visibly.

Abbie glanced at the clock. Thirty minutes remained of the day, and the damned clock could very well be ticking off her last breaths. She looked over at Crane.

She had tried to be brave the last six months, and had even gone days without thinking of what could be her impending demise. She'd reveled in her newfound relationship with Crane, had gone to work every day while he had begun his new job at the college in January. But the day of reckoning had come, and she had been on edge all day. In these final moments of the day, it all suddenly became too much for her.

She pushed her chair loudly back from the table.

"I can't take this anymore," she muttered, and practically ran to the front door.

"No! Abbie!" Crane called in anguish, for who knew what might be lurking in wait outside. He followed after her, pausing by the door to grab Abbie's service weapon and shove it into the front of his breeches.

He caught up with her halfway down the dark, quiet street, grabbing her arm and spinning her around to face him.

"Stop! Please. Look, I know you're frightened, but so am I. We mustn't allow our fears to get the better of us."

"Says you, carb boy?" she said, her voice rising almost hysterically.

He pulled her, struggling into his arms, embracing her almost against her will beneath a street light.

"Shh," he said into her hair. "I don't think your time is today. As a matter of fact, I think you will have many more years to come. You'll get married. Bear children. I've seen it, Abbie."

She pulled away from him to look up into his earnest face.

"What? How do you know this? Is there something you're not telling me?"

He confessed now the vision he had seen of their future, told her that he really thought it hadn't been a dream, that he had actually been there, living it with her for a few precious moments.

"I refuse to believe this was all in my imagination," he said. "I've been denying the truth of it to myself for months, more afraid that it might not come true. But I was there, Abbie. We will have a daughter, and she will be beautiful. And as the final minutes of this day draw to a close, I'm even more certain that what I saw will someday be our future."

Abbie's eyes were welling with tears. "You're not just saying that?"

"No, my love. I believe it."

He put his hands on either of her cheeks, willing her to believe along with him. She closed her eyes a moment, then opened them, sadness replaced with a new determination.

"If—if you're wrong," she said, her voice trembling. "I don't want our last moments together to be on a street. Take me home. Take me to bed."

"But Miss Jenny and Master Corbin—"

"I think they'll get it, don't you? Why do you think they spent half the day in the guest bedroom yesterday?"

He nodded, and, taking her hand, they trotted briskly back to the house. They went past an open-mouthed Jenny and Joe, and left them to their cards, shutting Abbie's bedroom door behind them.

They became lost in one another, their hunger so fierce, so raw, that neither of them looked at the bedside clock, though the concept of Time running out certainly fueled their passion.

Afterwards, as they lay spent, their breathing still unsteady, Crane hazarded a look at the clock. It was 12:20. He gathered her up in his arms, raining kisses over her damp forehead, heated cheeks and swollen lips.

"You're still here," he breathed into her hair. "You're still mine."

"Yes," she said, a wry smile in her voice, "it's like it was meant to be."

They held each other through the rest of the night, Crane vowing to himself that he would never attempt to travel through time again. He didn't want to be in the position of fearing the future, or of fighting it. He would accept life as it came, marriage and baby or not, and if, God forbid, Abbie was ever taken from him, he would remember these beautiful days with her, and he could consider his life complete.

THE END

A/N: Thanks for reading this. I hope you enjoyed it.

Poem excerpts:

*"To His Coy Mistress," by Andrew Marvell

**"To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time," by Robert Herrick